Academic Curriculum
A high quality educational experience for pupils to achieve their best.
Individual and child-centred approach to education
Our pupils are at the centre of everything we do. Everyone is treated as an individual and our child-centred approach to education ensures they develop a natural curiosity, motivation and thirst for learning.
Within our classrooms you will see a mix of tradition and innovation.
Our whole-child educational approach ensures our pupils are wholly engaged and there is energy and flexibility in the classroom with the right balance of support and challenge from our staff to enable every pupil to achieve their best.
Creative subjects of Sport, Art, Music and Drama enhance our academic curriculum to develop fully-rounded and adventurous people.
Curriculum
Berkhamsted Prep is located at our Doctors Commons Road site, from Years 3 – 6.
At age 7, our pupils at Berkhamsted Pre-Prep transfer to Berkhamsted Prep where the curriculum expands to include a wider range of subjects.
While literacy and numeracy remain the key foundation skills, the following subjects gain increasing importance:
Science | Art | French | Design & Food | History | Computing | Geography | Music | Religious Education | Drama
A learning-powered school
“Building Learning Power” BLP systematically cultivates habits and attitudes that help our pupils develop an awareness of how they learn and what they need to do to improve.
At Berkhamsted Prep we educate for lifelong learning.
Our care for our students remains long after they have left the School – we want their time with us to set them up for a successful and happy future life.
We see BLP have a positive impact on a daily basis. For example, our pupils:
- Ask intelligent questions to further their understanding
- Can explain how different topics and subjects are linked to and rely on each other
- Know how to listen actively and respond with compassion
- Are able to spot patterns and identify the big picture as well as the fine detail
- Appreciate the importance of planning ahead and reviewing progress regularly
- Understand the different roles they need to play when working together as a team and know how to resolve conflict
- Develop strategies that build resilience and view challenges and mistakes as valuable learning opportunities
- The skills and habits learnt within BLP lead to independent learning and divergent thinking in our pupils.
We see that BLP helps our pupils to focus and concentrate on their academic work with the ability to find several solutions for a problem.
Our pupils are the best examples of the tangible benefits of BLP – if you would like to find out more, have a chat with them about it on your visit.
Estimates now suggest that two-thirds of current school pupils will end up working in roles that don’t yet exist. Teenagers today are expected to have had between 10-15 different jobs by the time they are 40.
Where focus exists concurrently, progress will be made. In addition, establishing the concept of ‘learnable intelligence’ will stimulate independent learning, which in turn will allow pupils to develop their resilience and flexibility when confronted with difficulty.
We believe these core skills will benefit our students as they move through the school and beyond, onto university or an apprenticeship then into the workplace.
Our chosen BLP dispositions
We have chosen dispositions which, between them, represent four areas of development:
Cognitive
Emotional
Social
Strategic
Our chosen dispositions are:
- Persevere Explore
- Notice Plan
- Question Review
- Link Collaborate
- Reason Listen
Each disposition is then further subdivided to provide our teachers with opportunities to provide targeted interventions to help each pupil develop their ability to become reflective, independent and interdependent learners.
Assessment
A vital part of pupil development, motivating children and helping them to improve.
Assessment is a vital part of pupil development, helping your child to learn and also be motivated to learn.
Assessment is ongoing throughout pupils’ time with us. Personal feedback from our staff to our pupils is hugely important, as is the marking of work and regular setting of achievable targets.
We meet with parents for consultation evenings about your child’s progress twice each year, although our staff are available to discuss issues that may need urgent attention by mutual appointment at any time in the school year.
We pride ourselves in sharing pupil progress not only with pupils’ parents, but also with the children themselves. This motivates the pupils as they become clear about their progress and achievement and understand the priorities for learning that our staff identify.
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Open Events
Value added is the name of the game: most enter the nursery at national standard, but by year 6 the vast majority are well beyond it, with many of them significantly above.
Pupils develop their self-knowledge, self-esteem and resilience to a mature level, encouraged by the school’s focus on perseverance.
